“I have not lost my mind — it's backed up in the cloud somewhere (part of it right here)!”

“Orientation” does not excuse sin

In a blog post on the website of the “American Family Association” Bryan Fisher takes Dr. Albert Mohler of SBTS to task for his recent statement at a conference that he now believes it appropriate to speak of sexual orientation and that he regrets and repents of his past denial of such orientation.

Mr Fisher seems to see this as a wholesale capitulation to the spirit of the age of which he says Russell Moore of the SBC Ethics Commission has been guilty for a long time. Mr Fisher and his commenting friends also seem to believe that “orientation talk” implies that homosexuality is a gift from God and therefore not sinful.

This fails to take into account, however, that we live in a fallen world and are all born with the desire to sin. To say that does not make sin any less sinful, whether it is the desire to take what’s not mine, the desire to have sex with a woman not my wife, the desire to have sex with another man, the desire to have sex with children, the desire to inflict pain and suffering, etc.

ALL of these desired behaviours, though they may and do vary in the severity of the negative impact they have on their victims, are sin, plain and simple, and giving in to such desires is to sin against God’s order for his creation and thus against God himself.

Whether one calls such a desire to engage in sinful behaviour an orientation or a tendency or an inclination really does not make any difference — all of these words merely identify where my particular temptation to sin lies and do not justify or excuse my giving in to that temptation.

It is also irrelevant whether God ever removes that temptation (i.e whether re-orientation therapy works or not, which in any case would simply shift the area of temptation rather than remove it altogether); rather, Scripture says that God is faithful and “with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it .” (1 Cor 10:13, ESV)

And if proof is needed for the truth of that Scripture, a growing number of faithful Christians of all traditions speaking out about their life with and struggle against same-sex attraction are eloquent witnesses to God’s faithfulness and truth.

Therefore this entire smear campaign against Dr. Mohler is rather pointless and counterproductive.